Pretty sure 99% of Flyertalk is first world problems... if you are looking for deep, life-changing content you are probably on the wrong site

I don''t know if this is the appropriate thread, but I just got this from the Milwaukee Marriott saying: Dear Guest:

Our records indicate that you have a reservation at the Marriott Milwaukee Downtown for the week of August 16th.

Due to the Democratic National Convention coming to Milwaukee, we are validating credit cards in advance of your arrival. This means starting Tuesday, June 23rd the credit card on all reservations will be charged a deposit equal to the full room and tax for the entire stay. We ask that you verify the arrival date, departure date, and the number of reservations under your name are correct prior to 5pm (CST) on Monday, June 22nd to insure the deposit taken is accurate. If the credit card on file doesn’t accept the full deposit charge, the reservation(s) will be cancelled.

And the terms I agreed to for rate and cancellation policy directly with Marriott are as such:

You may cancel your reservation for no charge before 11:59 PM local hotel time on Sunday, August 16, 2020 (1 day[s] before arrival).
• Please note that we will assess a fee of 382.13 USD if you must cancel after this deadline.
• Please note that a change in the length or dates of your reservation may result in a rate change.

Do I have to now prepay or should I write the hotel back and tell them to pound sand. I might end of up going, but depending on the COVID-19 situation and the convention going virtual, I may want to cancel in August.

Thanks.

I am not a Spelling or Grammer Nazi by any means; however your first word combination really makes little sense.

I possibly misunderstood your post, I thought you had said you were provided a superior room at the adjacent property AND your only real complaint was that you had to chose to walk there rather than drive to the adjacent property parking lot?

A problem which really does not seem like a problem at all in the peak of a Global Pandemic.

I have had this same issue occur several times in recent months when both properties are under the same ownership. It just has to do with their bookkeeping. It actually benefitted me since I could rebook at the upgraded property the next night and this would qualify as a new “stay” and be eligible for an additional 2,000 points as part of the Bonvoy promotion which just ended.

I'd imagine that they're trying to weed out the people who would cancel due to COVID anyway to free up inventory for people who would want to book for attending the DNC.

If I were in this situation, I would suggest:

1. Call the hotel to ask them for clarification on the deposit. Is it a prepayment? Is the deposit refundable if you cancel after 6/22? If the deposit is refundable in the event that you cancel, make sure to get the name of the person you spoke to, and make note of it.
2. In the event that they are taking full nonrefundable prepayment, I would suggest contacting Marriott (corporate) for help. It's very possible that this property is doing something that corporate does not allow, especially under the current COVID policy https://marriott-re-2019ncovc.com/ which says you have until July 5th.
3. There are two routes you can go. You could keep your reservation, and then if you cancel later, dispute the charge citing the original terms that you agreed to, but I don't know what your chances of success would be there. The other route would simply to cancel the reservation now and book elsewhere, and send Marriott (corporate) a note telling them why.

You won't get very far down this route. There are no laws requiring hotels to honor your reservation if they cancel it in advance. They'd simply refund you and then tell you to pound sand.

I had a couple of stays in the US this month. The Liberty Boston, Luxury Collection, had no F&B and no services but they still charge an amenity fee. I asked them to take the fee off my bill and they complied. The rate was well less than normal.

Then this week I stayed at the W Washington DC and they too have no service, no F&B. But still normal high rates even though the hotel appeared to be maybe 10% occupied. I found out that the hotel next door, the Willard Intercontinental has their restaurant open all day so I switched hotels.

Also both Marriott properties gave weak one level upgrades as Titanium even though they were empty. The Intercon upgraded me to a huge named suite.

Recently I stayed at a Marriott group property while I was in transit. In hindsight I guess I should have phoned, but there was nowhere in my reservation confirmation or the Official website for the property to indicate that the airport shuttle was not operating. I didn't discover this until I phoned on landing and was informed by the agent that I'd have to make my own way to the hotel.

Now, I completely understand that they wouldn't want to run a shuttle service for a handful of guests per day. My issue is that there was no notification of this lack of service. The Uber rides added 60% to the cost of our stay in addition to the hassle incurred. I'd have preferred to pay that 60% more to stay at a hotel closer to the airport or one where the shuttle was running.

Would I be unreasonable in asking for some sort of compensation, if I could even find a way to get a hold of someone?

Yes, you could have done some research ahead of time.

I did do my research except for phoning them. I read my reservation email which clearly advertised shuttle service and also checked their website before making the reservation.

By the logic you're presenting, the onus is on the customer to make doubly sure they will receive what's advertised rather than a multi million dollar corporation update their systems with one paragraph; the following services are not available at this time. Airlines advertise on their sites that they are not serving food or drink "due to Coronavirus". Why can't Marriott do it?

You should have assumed that during the pandemic it was suspended and that the website may not be updated. Things like shuttles are not centrally managed by Marriott.

Under normal circumstances I'd agree with you, YYCCL3, but in what we're going through now I'm cutting travel providers a LOT of slack. Right now when traveling, if any particular hotel amenities are important to someone, I think it is incumbent on that person to positively verify that those services are in fact being provided. The fact of the matter is that things are changing so fast, in many cases out of the hotels' hands, that keeping up with the website would be nearly impossible. And then it becomes truly impossible when you realize these places are operating on a skeleton staff--I'd much rather they employ one more front desk worker to answer the phone to provide real-time updates rather than a web jockey in the back trying frantically to keep up with everything online.

The hotel needs to provide accurate information during the booking process. If it is too difficult to update the home page for each hotel, then Marriott should use a banner across the page that states "Due to COVID, many hotel services may not be available. Many properties do not have any food service or daily maid service. Please call individual properties for specific guidance."

The current banner is completely inadequate and simply states: "Customers should review government guidance to confirm eligibility to travel & stay at hotel. See travelguidance.marriott.com."

Of course, Marriott will not do so because full and appropriate disclosure of the current conditions would decrease bookings...

There is no reason for customers to know that services which they have come to expect are currently gone, beyond obvious things like indoor restaurants and gyms which are not permitted anywhere.

What do you mean "not permitted anywhere" ?? I recently stayed in Washington DC and restaurants are open there, interior or exterior. And I'm now in France and the hotel restaurants are open.

Thanks for the feedback all. I've spent some time reading other threads and see there are a lot of apologists for Marriott taking the cheap/lazy road by basically saying "we can't guarantee anything at this time". And also some people hostile from the other direction.

I've reached out to the property to see if they will offer anything to make me feel as if my stay was pleasant. I do not and should not feel like the hotel or its staff are doing me a favor simply by being open. There are tons of independent properties and heavily indebted AirBnB proprietors that would love to have my meager few hundred bucks.

Perhaps this whole thing will be a lesson to me. I generally do not stay in chain hotels. But I figured that this could be like a McDonald's experience for me (I love McDonald's) - no matter where I'm going, I should be able to find consistent, up to date information and standards guided and provided by the head office who is supporting the local franchisee/operator. I'm not expecting anything for free. Not elite benefits (which I have, admittedly through a credit card), not free breakfast, not a lounge, not the pool, not even the shuttle which is what I was pi$$ed about. I simply think I should be able to easily find what is available and what is not by looking at a website or confirmation email! I don't have time to phone multiple properties to find which one suits my needs. It's not that hard for Marriott HO to update the website - they own it, not the local operator - and these services have been gone for months and are not coming back anytime soon. It's not like last week they all of a sudden decided to close the lounge due to health guidelines. It's not that hard to put a boilerplate message on a website. Even if there was a pop up on the reservation page saying that they guarantee nothing and to contact the property in question to see if they are even open!

/rant over :)

Is this boilerplate enough for you? It is on every property. Keeping updated info on 7,000 properties scattered around the world is an impossible task. As I understand, the properies cannot update their information directly and must submit changes to Marriott for central & consistent processing.

Sure they could send in info and have it updated on the website, providing Marriott could handle repeated requests from 7,000 properties, in a timely manner, but what if you book on that information and it changes before check-in? SImilarly, calling in at booking is no assurance that it won't change before arrival. A follow up call a few days before would be most accurate and if there were changes you would have opportunity to cancel and book something else, or have a plan B in the works.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...7779e80bd8.jpg


This is a search for LAX properties on July 11-12. The prepaid rate, which can be cancelled by 11:59 pm July 10th without a penalty is the unheard of rate of $129. The FP around the corner is $128.

At this price for a full service property, you should assume some facilities & services are not available. LAX County had started slowly reopening effective June 1st but bars & restaurants were forced closed again when the order was updated on July 2nd due to the Spike in COVID-19 cases. How useful would property specific information be if you booked on June 5th for July 3rd?

I think we should all assume that things won't be like they were for quite some time to come. We should also be proactive in keeping abreast of our plans to determine if we can actually get to where we want to be and hope the hotels we choose don't fold in the interim.

James

That's boilerplate enough for me. If I had seen that when I was booking, it would have prompted me to take a closer look and investigate further. Upon checking more closely, that notice is only present on the app and absolutely nowhere on the desktop website. Most people do not book using the app. A swing and a miss by Marriott. i haven't used them enough to know, but maybe their IT/IS just sucks.